What this site collects
Last updated 21 August 2026
The short version
You can read every page here without accepting anything. Analytics only start if you press Accept, and pressing Decline costs you nothing — no feature is withheld and no page behaves differently. We do not sell data, run advertising on this site, or build profiles of visitors.
Who is responsible
Umbrella500, working between Amman and Luxembourg, is responsible for this site and decides what is collected on it. For anything on this page, including a request to see or delete your data, write to [email protected].
What is collected, and when
When you are only reading
The site is hosted on Cloudflare, which handles every request and keeps short-lived logs — IP address, browser, page requested — to serve the page and to stop attacks and abuse. Cloudflare Web Analytics counts page views and measures load speed without cookies and without any identifier that follows you between visits. Neither needs your consent, and neither is switched off by declining, because the site cannot be served or defended without them.
Only if you accept
Two tools load, both through Google Tag Manager, and neither runs before you press Accept. Google Analytics 4 tells us which pages are read, roughly where readers are and what brought them here. Microsoft Clarity records how a page was used — scrolling, clicks, where people get stuck — and can replay a session. Clarity masks text on the page by default, so what is typed into the newsletter field is not captured.
If you email us
Every contact link here opens your own mail app. There is no form and nothing is submitted through this site, so the message goes straight to our inbox and is kept there as long as the conversation is useful.
If you subscribe to the dispatch
Four things reach our email provider, Brevo: your address, whether you were reading in English or Arabic, which page you subscribed from, and the date. Nothing else — no name, and no IP address. You are sent a confirmation email first and are not added to anything until you click it, so an address typed in by someone else never gets subscribed. Every dispatch carries an unsubscribe link that works immediately.
Cookies and browser storage
Only the first of these exists before you answer the cookie question. The providers name and describe their own cookies definitively; this is what they are for here.
| Name | Set by | What it is for | Needs consent |
|---|---|---|---|
u500.consent | This site — browser storage, not a cookie | Your answer to the cookie question, and the date you gave it, so you are not asked on every page. | No — it is the record of your choice |
_ga, _ga_… | Google Analytics | Tells a repeat visit from a first one and groups page views into a single visit. | Yes |
_clck, _clsk | Microsoft Clarity | Joins your page views into one session so a recording is coherent rather than a pile of fragments. | Yes |
none | Cloudflare Web Analytics | Page counts and load speed, measured without any cookie or stored identifier. | No — it stores nothing |
Who else handles it
Four companies process data on our behalf, each under its own contract and standard EU transfer clauses where data leaves Europe. Cloudflare serves and protects the site. Google runs Tag Manager and Analytics. Microsoft runs Clarity. Brevo, based in France, sends the dispatch. Google and Microsoft are United States companies and process data there.
How long it is kept
Analytics data expires in Google Analytics after 14 months. Clarity and Cloudflare apply their own retention, measured in weeks and months rather than years. Your newsletter subscription is kept until you unsubscribe. Your consent record lives only in your own browser and is gone when you clear site data.
Your rights
If the GDPR applies to you, you can ask for a copy of what we hold, ask us to correct or delete it, object to it being processed, or ask for it in a portable form. Write to [email protected] and we will answer within a month. You can also complain to your national data protection authority; in Luxembourg that is the CNPD.
Changing your mind
Withdrawing is one press, in the same place as giving: Cookie settings, at the bottom of any page. Decline and the analytics cookies stop being set immediately. Clearing your browser storage for this site has the same effect and means you will be asked again.
Changes
If a new tool is added, this page changes and the cookie question is asked again — an answer given to one description does not carry over to a different one. The date at the top is the date of the last change.